MBA's mortgage and commercial finance convention and show kicked off this Sunday and more than ever, given the current market environment, attendees are eager to hear what their colleagues have to say about a laundry list of issues. GlobeSt.com is there and we hope you will return to our site to see what we have covered. In the meantime, we have caught up with several people going to the event in San Diego to see what they expect to get out of the conference this year.  

Undaunted by the economic uncertainty, Jeffrey Ketron, Senior Vice President at Northmarq tells us that he is expecting to see and hear a good bit of optimism, peppered with some somber realism, similar to what he saw at NMHC last week. "People in this marketplace are always excited to get back together because it is a 'people business', to hear what is happening in different markets from those players, discuss where property values have gone and may be headed, how cap rates have widened affecting the investment sales space, and how large of a player will the Agencies be in the multifamily finance space."

This is what he believes will be discussed: How office markets, particularly the larger ones, are starting to show signs of coming back as workers are being encouraged to return to the office, retail sales have reportedly slowed which leads to challenges in the shopping center sector, but industrial and self-storage reportedly continue to perform very well. "Regarding multifamily, which is our team's focus, we're always excited to have opportunities to engage with our partners from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac;  at CREF, we're able to both to take part in their larger DUS and Optigo meetings to hear about their goals and initiatives for 2023, and then have individual team meetings with each Agency to lay out our goals for 2023 and plan how we at Northmarq can move quickly to fit into their wider 2023 objectives to remain an important player in the multifamily finance space."